The Vessel
by Laetans
Summary: Juvia's body is made from water for a reason, and when a powerful, evil creature possesses her, Gray is left with the responsibility of either saving her or using his ice magic to freeze her aqueous body, an act that would kill both the monster and Juvia. GrayxJuvia
1. Chapter 1

_Drip, drip, drop…_

_Drip, drip, drop…_

_Drip, drip, drop…_

As Gray Fullbuster lay completely naked on top of his bed, he stared up at the ceiling and listened to the rain outside. Normally, he found rain peaceful and had no issues sleeping through it. A growing sense of concern kept him from sleeping though, because it wasn't normal rain. It was _hers_. Gray wasn't sure what it was, but the longer he knew Juvia, the easier he could tell the difference between precipitation caused by weather and precipitation caused by Juvia.

He turned on the light and sat up, dangling his legs over the edge of the bed, and tried to think about what reasons the rain mage might have for being upset. Juvia normally only lost the ability to control the rain when she had some kind of acute emotion, like sadness or loneliness or even happiness.

The rain suddenly started to fall harder, and Gray felt a sense of alarm because it was falling so hard that Magnolia would undoubtedly flash flood, which put citizens and structures in danger since Magnolia's climate was mild enough that the city wasn't really built for the rain that was happening.

Most importantly, he knew something must have been wrong with Juvia. Gray decided that the only thing he could do was go out and look for Juvia to find out why she was upset and then try to calm her down. All he could remember was that she'd taken a really easy job the week before, but he didn't even know she was back in town until the rain started.

He grabbed an umbrella as he stepped out of his apartment and found it was raining so hard that he could barely see as far as the next few steps, and since the moon and stars were blocked out by thick storm clouds and a curtain of water all around him, it was extremely dark.

Gray just hoped she was in her room at the girls' dorms, because if she wasn't, he really didn't know where to look and visibility made a search near-impossible. Yet, as soon as he was a block away from his house, the rain dropped down to a light mist. He took a step back, and it poured again, making him believe that his apartment was in the middle of the torrential part of the downpour.

And then, a scream.

"Juvia!" he shouted as he ran back toward his apartment.

He found her not far from the steps that led to his apartment, laid out in the middle of the street as she held her midsection and cried as if very seriously wounded. Gray dove down next to her and dropped his umbrella before scooping her up and nearly shivering at the weird sensation he felt. It almost felt like he was close to something evil, like when Acnologia landed on Tenrou Island.

Instinct told him to drop Juvia and ran far and fast, but it was Juvia. Those weren't feelings he'd ever felt around her before, and was so confused.

When she screamed in pain, he dashed upstairs to his apartment and brought her into his home for the first time.

Juvia was crumpled up and in pain, and expecting horrible injuries, he carried her to his couch and put her down. "Gray-sama…" she managed to cry, "please h-help Juvia. Help me p-please…"

"What happened?" he asked as he looked for blood or bruises.

The skin that he could see wasn't at all blemished, but her eyes were dark – almost black – rather than being their normal shade of blue. She screamed and put her hands on her stomach and he tugged her shirt upward, expecting to find an injury there.

Instead, there was a strange black magic symbol on her body, and under it, he could see something moving under her skin. Her entire body swelled and something protruded outward over a foot, causing her to arch her back and wail in agony.

"What happened?!"

For over a minute, she seemed completely lost in the struggle against whatever was in there, and then suddenly became quiet and still. While he was certain that she wasn't dead, she looked so weak and pale, like the struggle was killing her.

Gray felt encouraged by the fact that whatever it was had ceased torturing her and hoped it either died or the spell wore off or the problem had somehow been resolved, although there was no avoiding a 2AM trip to the guild to wake up Makarov at that point as far as he was concerned. "Juvia, what happened to you?"

"Juvia's last job was a trap. Juvia can't talk about it," she whimpered in a voice that warned the subject was going to cause tears if he pushed her. "Gray-sama, Juvia is thirsty…"

"You just stay here. I'll be right back with some water, okay?"

In the time it took him to fill a glass with water and form several ice cubes using ice-make magic, Juvia stood up from his couch and wandered aimlessly to the window. She managed to stop the rain, but when her eyes drifted around the rest of the room, they became fixed on a letter opener that was left on his desk next to a pile of mail.

Her fingers gripped the curtains on the window when she felt the monster inside of her surge forth again and she stumbled over to the desk and grabbed the letter opener. She turned it inward and plunged it into the bulging protrusion, refusing to use water magic to negate the effects. The blade sank into her torso and it hurt so much that she couldn't even scream.

She just sank to the floor just as the sound of someone calling her name and a shattering glass were heard.

"Juvia! Juvia, what are you doing?"

The blood that was oozing out of the wound had ribbons of midnight blue mixed with red, but the creature inside of her pushed the letter opener out and the darker blood ceased to pour from the wound while Gray ripped his shirt off and pressed it against the wound.

He felt overwhelmed and completely unsure of what to do.

"Juvia can't fight anymore," she whispered in defeat as she slumped forward against his chest. "It's too strong. It's evil, and so powerful. Gray-sama, will you do something for Juvia?"

"Anything. Just tell me what I need to do. We'll go see Master. He'll know what to do."

The water mage who had fallen from him the first moment she met him said, "If you turn me to ice, it'll die."

Gray instantly rejected the idea. "If I turn your body into ice, you'll die too. I'm not going to do that."

Juvia reached up and put a bloody hand on his face. "You have to protect everyone from that thing. It will use Juvia's body to protect itself. Most magic can't hurt Juvia. Yours could kill with a single touch."

"I'm not doing it, Juvia," he indignantly said as he put his hand over her wound and froze it over to stop the bleeding. "We're going to the guild right now, okay?"

She looked up at him and he felt the creeping sense of power and malice again as her eyes went from being their natural shade of blue back to being black. "Juvia is sorry…"

Then Juvia went completely limp, slumping over into his arms, which cracked the ice over her wound. Since her body _was_ different, he was scared to try and freeze the area more solid, so he took her back to the couch and ran to his bathroom for gauze and bandages.

A creak from the couch reached Gray's ears and he looked out the bathroom door to see Juvia stand up straight and examine her arms and hands, then her feet and clothing. She moved awkwardly, and tripped forward, all without blood dripping on the floor, as if the wound had closed on its own.

Then, there was this low, loud, and utterly terrifying growl that resonated from her for a split second before she cleared her throat.

A deceptively innocent, normal voice called, "Gray? Where are you?"

He stepped out with the gauze and bandages. "I just wanted to dress your wound a little better. Then we'll go see Makarov."

She smiled at him and said, "That won't be necessary. I feel quite well now. I guess I overpowered it, which is a relief. That was frightening."

The distinct lack of a '-sama' and proper implementation of first person communicated everything to Gray that Juvia couldn't at that point. The person before him looked like Juvia. Even her eyes were the right color and her slight smile was all Juvia. The voice was right and the facial expression even matched to some extent, but he knew.

The monster inside of Juvia's body had taken complete control of her.

There was a part of him that wanted to lash out and attack, but ultimately, he couldn't do anything to the monster without hurting Juvia. Stories about real possession were very rare even in a world filled with magic, and what he'd sensed made him feel like whatever had possessed Juvia was extremely powerful and extremely evil.

Juvia, who had all the faith in the world in Fairy Tail and in him, didn't believe he could fight and save her from it, and even said that he had to kill her to protect the guild. Those words gave him pause.

After taking the minute he had to make a choice, he chose to play along and not make any move at all until he'd spoken to Makarov about everything that he had seen that night. Gray was enough of a pragmatist to respect the fact that if he challenged whatever was in Juvia's body and lost, it would probably kill him and he had no idea how long it would take other people to realize Juvia wasn't Juvia anymore.

He was still standing there when 'Juvia' took her long gloves off and started to unbutton her shirt.

"Juvia?"

The shirt fell to the floor, exposing a smooth, bare back that was only interrupted by her bra strap.

Any doubts he had about whether or not Juvia was in control were laid to rest when that happened. Juvia was modest, shy, and the monster inside clearly didn't understand this side of her at all.

It had very, very wrongly assumed that Juvia's choice to go to Gray over everyone else and her words and love for him meant something that it did not. So when she turned and shot him seductive eyes, all he could think about how wrong and horrible it was. Because Juvia was like she was, Gray knew he couldn't go along with whatever the imposter planned on doing.

"You know I'm not interested, Juvia," he said, although he hoped Juvia – if she was still in there – couldn't hear him. They'd never had a conversation about their relationship and he honestly didn't know whether or not he was. But for that moment, it would keep whatever had possessed her of doing something that would only hurt Juvia more, so that was what he said.

His eyes drifted over her bra and then her flat stomach, where there was no magic symbol, no stab wound, and nothing but smooth, warm skin. Juvia didn't seem to have the ability of instantaneous healing on the rare occasions that her body was wounded, so this only gave him more reason to believe that Juvia wasn't Juvia.

"My shirt was bloody."

Gray replied, "I'll let you borrow one of mine. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm tired, but I'm okay now. I don't want Master to know that I got distracted on the way home and got into all this trouble. You see, I got off the train and went to see a traveling mage – you probably won't be able to find him – but he did this to me. I must have beaten the spell by resisting for so long," she answered, subtly rewriting the story that Juvia had told Gray.

Whatever happened to her happened during her last job, and considering that whatever it was tried to glaze over that fact, Gray knew that it was probably the only place he might find answers.

After 'Juvia' reassured him that she was fine and he promised not to tell anyone about anything he witnessed, he walked her back to the dorms and then went straight to the guild.

It was dark inside, and he quietly made his way to the little apartment that Makarov moved into in order to help ensure the guild wasn't empty at night.

"What? Who is it?!" he croaked when Gray knocked on the door.

"Something happened. Can I speak with you?"

Groaning and complaining were heard on the other side of the door, and Makarov appeared in a pair of blue pajamas and a nightcap. "What is it? Did someone get injured?"

The old man shuffled ahead of him to the main room and flipped on the lights. "Well?"

"Something bad happened to Juvia. Something really bad and I don't even really know how to explain it," he started as he went behind the bar and started looking for a piece of paper and a pen. "I saw a magic symbol and I want to write it down before I forget what it looked like."

Makarov hopped on a barstool. "Where is Juvia?"

"At the dorms. But, I don't think it's Juvia."

"What do you mean?"

As Gray recounted everything he'd seen, heard, and felt over the course of the short period between when the rain woke him up and when he saw Juvia enter the dorms, the guild master became increasingly worried. There were too many things about the story that set off too many alarms, the biggest of which was the fact that Gray could sense the evil emanating from Juvia's body at various points up until the end.

Around the time he finished, he showed the symbol to Makarov. "Do you know what this is?"

When the old man saw it, he took a deep breath and mumbled, "So she was the one…"

"What?"

"A long time ago, the ten saint wizards convened because there were reports of a cult that was buying orphans and doing things to them with magic. We attacked and what we found was horrifying. There were children that had been liquefied, and so many bodies. This cult had been trying to create some kind of container they called 'the Vessel.'"

"A container?"

"Yes, something that could hold some other living thing. We found records showing that they succeeded, but the Vessel somehow escaped from them. We never found anything that described the Vessel or gave us any clues about finding it. The cult sprung up again, but they were always searching for the Vessel. The fact that they didn't simply attempt to make a new one suggested that perhaps there was something inside of the Vessel that made it impossible to create a second one," Makarov said.

Gray said, "Liquified, turned into liquid…"

Makarov nodded. "That symbol that you drew was in their temple. Juvia is around the same age as the children that were there, and her body is very unique. Humans are not born made from water, so something happened to her that caused her to become like she is. Yet, it happened when it was so young, she doesn't know. I have suspected Juvia might be related to that mess since I first heard of her. Master Jose had the same suspicion."

There was a protracted silence while Makarov considered their options and Gray tried to process the events of the evening and the information that was presented to him. "So is she being controlled by someone else?"

"It's not that simple. Mind-control magic is banned, but it's not usually very powerful and it works in a different way. Juvia has that expansive space inside of her body. I think whatever is controlling her is probably physically located inside of her - that's why you could see it move. Normal spells won't break that bond, and if it has significantly more power than she does, trying to force it out with attack would kill Juvia," the old man answered.

It was really a terrifying proposition. Some creature had been physically put inside of Juvia's body and taken complete control of her. Considering that there was some chance that she was specifically altered with magic to accommodate whatever monster it was, even Makarov knew to play his cards carefully.

Whatever it was hadn't killed Gray even when he had the biggest chance of outing it, so Makarov decided the monster had some reason for playing nice. At the same time, an investigation into what was going on would be conspicuous and Makarov didn't want to send more powerful people away than was necessary.

Considering the interest the Council had back when they attacked the cult, Makarov knew the threat of their involvement was a serious threat too, and the cult itself was nothing to dismiss. Every aspect of what was happening carried danger.

"What do we do?" Gray asked.

"I don't know yet. Let me think for a while…"

And as Makarov and Gray tried to hammer out a plan, Juvia – or whatever was in control – stepped onto the windowsill of her open window and turned into water that flowed down the side of the dorms into a gelatinous clear puddle that moved across the grass. These were not abilities that Juvia had on her own, but they allowed the monster to travel without being seen.

The smell of human blood beckoned it to an alley not far from a bar where a man was sitting with a beer, cursing under his breath about a fight that he'd lost when a beautiful woman with blue hair appeared right in front of him.

"Hey there, honey," he drunkenly slurred.

Juvia's head tilted to the side and a vacant yet somehow despondent expression formed on her face. "I am hungry."

"Yeah? I got something you can put in your mouth."

She came a little closer and pulled her shirt up just as an enormous midnight blue-claw erupted from the flesh with a splash of Juvia's blood. The drunk screamed as loudly as he could, but by the time the barkeeper heard the noise, he was being pulled into Juvia's body through her stomach by the huge claw.

When the bartender stepped out into the alley, a wave of water was washing down the alley, erasing the blood and the traces that Juvia had even been there.

_AN: Yep. It's been months. Hi everybody._


	2. Chapter 2

Halfway across Fiore a few days later, Gray was hiking down a mountain to get to the temple that held the only real clues he'd been given about the creature that had taken residence inside of Juvia. Makarov told him about the place the saint wizards had raided and where it was, but it had taken a while to cover that much ground.

Even after three days, the idea that Juvia had been taken over still made him cringe and each time he recollected how he saw whatever it was moving, he practically shuddered in horror.

As he pulled himself to a point where he expected to see this temple, the only thing he saw was an enormous pile of rubble.

"Shit..." he mumbled under his breath as he created a slide of ice to get down to the ruins.

As soon as his long descent started, he noticed that the air was unnaturally cold and became colder the closer he got to the ground. By the time he put his feet down on the grass, he was shivering from it even under his clothes and even with his incredible tolerance to cold. Somehow, that tiny little area nestled between the mountains felt colder than the worst night of a winter in Brago.

And then, a sound he wished he'd never have to hear again:

The sound of Acnologia's wings flapping and the wind it caused were things that he had mentally catalogued as experiences that were terrible and hopefully once-in-a-lifetime.

No such luck for Gray Fullbusuter, but when he turned and looked up, it wasn't Acnologia. There was a crystalline dragon that seemed to be covered in scales made from ice. It hovered above him, staring down at him, and he stared up at it in fear.

It slammed down to the ground less than ten meters from him and Gray barely managed to cover his ears before it shrieked loud enough to send him to the ground. The sound deafened him for a few seconds, and he was so cold then that he could barely make his body move.

The dragon – which was significantly smaller than Acnologia but looked no less capable of killing him – moved forward to loom over him and lowered its snout to Gray.

"Why are you here, Human?" a low, booming male voice asked.

Gray nervously stammered, "No reason. I just came here to find out about something. I will leave right away. What I came for probably isn't here."

When he tried to get up, one of the dragon's feet knocked him onto his back and then pressed him into the ground, talons just on each side of his head. "Human, I want to know where the vessel is. If you came here you must know what they made here. Where is it?"

The dragon wanted to know about Juvia, and that scared him more than his present circumstances, which were unquestionably frightening. Gray stared up at the monster and thought about using magic to try and escape, but as wonderful as fate was, it was an ice dragon he'd run into and he assumed the dragon would just eat his ice and then spit it back at him.

"I am not going to tell you anything about that. So do what you're going to do or let me go," he finally managed to say.

For that comment, the dragon roared in his face and moved one of his claws just enough to drive the tip through the ice wizard's left hand.

Gray hadn't ever felt pain like that in his entire life, and after failed attempts to flail about in pain and scream, the pain went away because his hand and arm started to freeze thanks to the indescribably cold claw stuck in the wound.

The dragon pulled his claw out and left a frozen hole in his hand, which he could no longer move thanks to numbness and destroyed nerve endings.

"Tell me where the vessel is!" the dragon growled again.

And when Gray couldn't even bring himself to speak, it shrieked at him again.

Shivering, Gray managed to force his chattering teeth to be still just long enough to say, "…no."

The dragon lifted his foot, and although his captive wanted to flee, he was too cold to make his body function normally. Gray squirmed a little in vain, but found himself flat on his back when a single claw was held next to his throat.

It raked up to his face, and then back down to his throat and then to his chest, ripping his clothes in places and leaving shallow wounds from his head down to his waist. Then, it sank into him again, slowly, right where his Fairy Tail mark was and then pushed through until it sank into the ground under him.

If one of his lungs hadn't been all but destroyed by this, he might have screamed. The fact that his blood froze on contact kept him from bleeding to death within seconds, but if blood wasn't flowing to his heart and lungs, he'd die very soon anyway.

Gray coughed, and a spray of blood erupted from his mouth. He gasped for air, but he couldn't breathe, and then he realized that he was dying. He was going to die there on the ground alone, killed by some beast that was looking for Juvia, and there wasn't anything that he could do about it.

Forced to accept that he was going to die, he suddenly felt precious seconds tick away like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass. He was so cold, he couldn't breathe, he was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. Knowing this monster was probably going to make his way to Fairy Tail made him even angrier, because he couldn't even warn them.

Then he remembered that he had a magic spell that could stop any foe, but at the expense of his life, which was over anyway.

Summoning whatever strength he had left, he flattened his feet against the ground and willed his arms to move. His lips moved, but no sound came out, and he put every last ounce of energy into Iced Shell.

He felt his body turn to magic power, and then to ice, at which point he didn't feel cold anymore and he wasn't hurting.

The dragon seemed shocked and enraged when things suddenly started to change, and it attempted to resist the spell, using Dragon Force to turn completely into ice. None of that helped the dragon, and Gray lost consciousness.

XXX

Makarov put his hand over his heart when he felt a tightening, and thought at first his bad heart was having a problem. But he knew it was something so much more than that after a few seconds. A bond had broken, and he stood there and wondered who it could have been and how it happened.

Was it Juvia, devoured by the monster within? Or Gray, who had gone off on his own to investigate? Or maybe that monster had chosen to take someone else for whatever reason. Whoever it was, he would find out who was responsible and then he'd find some way to react that would somehow lessen the blow.

Whatever the answer was, he fought the urge to turn back and go home.

He threw open the doors to a chateau beside a quiet lake and leapt twice to get to the second floor, then stomped down the hall to the source of magic.

Jose Porla was sitting in a chair in his study when Makarov burst through the doors.

And he just smirked.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, Makarov?"

Makarov's expression darkened. "I've come here to make good on the promise I made that day – that if you ever hurt my children again I would erase every trace that you ever existed."

"I have retired to this lovely home. You see, I don't have a guild to manage thanks to you and I haven't been near Magnolia or had contact with anyone associated with your guild in seven years."

The old man used Titan magic to grow to a size just big enough to fit under the vaulted ceiling. "Listen to me, Jose. If you intend to know tomorrow, you will tell me what you did. You told me that you found whatever that cult made. You said it died."

Jose chuckled, exhibiting a dark sense of fascination. "If you're here, then that means it happened, hm? Didn't keep a close eye on your rain woman, did you?"

"Tell me everything!"

"Why? I have no reason. I'd die if it meant the destruction of your guild and you."

In his youth, Makarov was not a wise, kind, or particularly gentle, and managed to rack up an impressive list of sins. Destructive, emotional, and often heavy-handed, he'd dropped a hammer or two in his day and this man – this man that was partly responsible for the horrors unfolding at Fairy Tail – was daring to deny him the knowledge that he wanted.

Over the next hour, Makarov destroyed Porla's home, put marks on his body that were never going to heal, and didn't even stop when the man reluctantly agreed to surrender information.

Beaten and bloodied, Jose was left a wounded mess, barely able to move his mouth. Whatever rage that he incurred with his petty guild war was nothing compared to what Makarov gave him, and once Makarov was finished breaking him, he realized the old man had likely come alone just so no one saw him in this cruel, vengeful, merciless state.

Porla murmured, "After the ten saint wizards fought the cult…it was about five years. One of my Phantom Lord mages investigated aberrant weather in that region. He determined that it was magic of origin, but could not find out how it was being made. The client was very important. I went to investigate and I found the center of the storms was an orphanage where everyone blamed a gloomy little child for the rain. I took her from there and gave her the name Juvia."

"Where?"

"The orphanage in the valley. It is my belief that Juvia involuntarily turned to water and washed away from the temple during a storm. No one there had any idea what she was or where she had come from."

Makarov said, "What was she made to be a vessel for?"

Jose sneered. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Makarov? Her body tells much of the story. Normal humans may be able to turn themselves into an element, but they can never go back. Juvia can turn to and from water more easily than a normal person can change clothes."

That much was true, and when he remembered Iced Shell, it was a case of that exactly. Once the flesh changes forms, there was no going back. Yet he had witnessed those that could break this rule. Natsu had used dragon force to turn into pure fire, and Laxus could freely change from lightning to flesh and back again. The only thing that they had in common was their dragon slayer heritage, although they were the only two that had been known to do this.

"Are you saying that Juvia is a dragon slayer?"

Porla said, "Haven't you ever wondered why the cult didn't simply make a new vessel? The one they made vanished, but instead of doing what they did again, the've spent almost two decades searching for her. Juvia has something that cannot be replaced. Your grandson has one too.

"The lacrima was so powerful and she was so young that it overwhelmed her completely. While in my guild, Juvia was isolated, disturbed, and when she was young, viewed herself as being a separate entity inside of her mind. Even as she grew into an adult, she seemed at least subconsciously aware of her dual nature and always spoke of herself in third person, as if there was something else there too."

Makarov fisted his hands. "So those children that died whose bodies failed to accept the lacrima."

Jose tried to stand, but fell back down again. "The only other thing that I know is that once, she was called to a job to make it rain on a farmer's crops. She disappeared for a month and had no memory that any time had passed and no recollection of what happened."

"Why do you think this is large enough in magnitude to destroy my guild?"

"Do you remember the cult's temple? The monster on the floor was a dragon with six heads. In mythology, there's a creature called Hydra who has numerous heads and must live in the water. According to legends, when it died, a pearl came from its body. But you know what Hydra is, because it's hard to research Acnologia without hearing that name. A sweet love story, no? A human kills a water dragon and her mate spends an entire millennia punishing humankind for it."

Makarov was silent for a while, so Jose said, "If I was you, I would take that girl underground to hide the scent, and I would kill her and destroy every shred of evidence that she was ever there. That dragon is going to come for you again. We both know that."

The old man shook his head. "Maybe you didn't learn, but we don't give up. Any member of Fairy Tail would die for the guild."

"That's good, because we both know if you continue along this path, none of you will survive."

With that, Makarov walked away, wandering back into the forest on the path that led to the closest village. He felt nauseated, disgusting, and terrified, and nothing scared him more than the fact that by keeping a possessed Juvia there, he was practically making a future clash with Acnologia inevitable.

They were fortunate to have Fairy Sphere and to be on a deserted island during the last attack. If Acnologia attacked Magnolia, his decision to keep Juvia close might result in the deaths of thousands. And when the Magic Council got wind of it, they'd attack with the Etherion.

XXX

While he was traveling home, the sun set on Magnolia and as the possessed Juvia was walking home from the guild, Gajeel's voice called for her.

She turned, and seeming as normal as ever, waited for him to catch up with her.

He seemed cross, aggressive, and looking for a fight. The real Juvia was trapped inside of her body but unable to do anything to stop her body's actions. The only thing she knew is that Gajeel didn't make that face at her, so she knew he must have figured it out somehow.

No one knew her more than Gajeel, so if anyone in the guild might be able to see she wasn't acting like herself, it was him.

Juvia was scared, and she didn't want to see Gajeel punished because of his friendship or his love for her. Since he was the first friend she'd ever had, she was so scared. And she wanted him to have enough sense to not do what it looked like he was about to do.

Yet inside of her own body, she couldn't do anything but linger and try not to look at the huge six-headed water dragon that was using the space in her body to hide in plain sight. It was vicious, ate humans, and even if she tried to speak to her, it never said anything back. She felt like the dragon regarded her as a pest, barely acknowledging her presence.

Gajeel said, "Juvia? No. You're not Juvia. I don't know the hell you are, but you smell like Juvia and you're not."

Hydra made the same confused expression Gajeel had seen countless times. "Gajeel, what are you talking about?"

"Prove you're Juvia!"

"Gajeel, I'm confused, but I guess if it will put your mind at ease…"

It suddenly started to rain, and Gajeel was perplexed. "But, Juvia hates fish. You ate fish today. Juvia is left-handed. You've been writing with your right. You're not Juvia. I don't know who you are, but I'll beat you out of her if that's the problem!"

'_Please don't. Don't hurt him!' _Juvia pled with the monster.

And finally, it spoke to her, in an ugly, low female voice that sounded somewhat old. _'Will you cry for this one like you have for the strangers that nourish me? You are mortals. In the end, you are all corpses.'_

Juvia made some attempted to regain control of her body when she felt the power surge forth, but her power was nothing compared to Hydra, whose name she did not even know.

There on the secluded path that led through the woods from the guild to the girls' dorm, Gajeel watched familiar blue eyes darken.

Hands that had defended him and lifted him when he was broken reached out and transformed into dreadful claws. The bloodlust that suddenly appeared scared him, and a wave of water came toward him.

Hiding within that wave was his possessed friend, claws bared, and the cuts were lethal and made without even a second of hesitation. There was never any time to use his scales, and even if there had been, she was far, far more powerful than he and there was never any chance that he'd have lived more than a few seconds.

But Gajeel wasn't used to playing by these rules. He thought there would be a battle and then he'd save Juvia. Mages rarely killed one another in cold blood like this, because there was rarely a reason to do so. Besides, fear of the Magic Council was often the difference between a beating and a murder. The only warning he had that this fight had different rules was the splattering sound his insides made when they hit the ground.

Juvia shrieked into the watery prison, and then kept screaming, making threats she knew she couldn't make good on.

The monster made no less than twenty more swipes, which strung blood, bones, and body parts all over the path. She killed because she couldn't let Gajeel tell anyone, but then everything else was merely for fun.

By the time it was over, Juvia was in a near catatonic state, eyes staring blankly forward into the watery abyss of her body.

The dragon picked up Gajeel's heart and shoved it through her torso into that abyss, where the monster ate it and made criticism about how terrible her dear friend tasted.

And all she could think is that these things weren't supposed to occur. Fairy Tail was a place that was happy and bathed in light, so how? How could someone die? How could Gajeel die?

It didn't take long for the smell of blood to travel to the guild, where it was picked up by Laxus and Natsu at practically the same moment. The smell of Gajeel's blood was thick on the air, and at first, Natsu was confused. Wendy had just gone home, so the only other person that might have smelled it was Laxus, although by the time Natsu looked up to upstairs overlord, he was already leaving.

Natsu bounded after him with Happy, and barely beat Laxus to the scene where Wendy was standing on the path, mouth and eyes wide as she and Charle gazed upon the scene of gore.

More on instinct than anything, Laxus put his hand over Wendy's eyes and turned her around.

"Wendy, have Happy take you back to the guild. Tell Mirajane. Tell her that absolutely no one should step foot outside of the building and anyone who is not there should be," Laxus numbly ordered.

Charle protested, but Happy flew almost ten times faster than she did in short spurts, so by the time she opened her mouth to protest, Wendy was already back inside of the guild and she was flying after them.

And Natsu just stood there, staring. "Wh-What the hell happened here? This scent is Gajeel but…but this…is this even a person? God…what's happening?! The guild is right there and I didn't hear a fight. Who can kill someone like Gajeel just like that?"

Laxus looked back toward the guild. "The reason you didn't hear a fight is because there was no fight. Look around you. There's not one sign that a fight happened here."

Natsu was shaking, almost unable to believe anything like this could have happened. And it happened right next to the guild, on the path where almost all the girls walked to get home.

"Natsu, do you smell any scents that should not be here?"

The fire dragon focused as hard as he could. "No. Maybe they hid their smell."

Laxus felt it was more or less his job to do whatever his grandfather would have done had he been in Magnolia at the time. He was the only active s-class wizard in town and he was also the oldest of the ones who were worth their salt. Plus, he was the oldest because he'd seen things like this happen before. Wizarding was dangerous; people died sometimes.

There were a lot of things that bothered him, like the fact his grandfather had practically run off on his own without explaining why. Before that, when he'd tried to take a job, Makarov asked him to stay in Magnolia for a while and that if Erza came back, make sure she stayed in town too. He thought that meant that maybe there would be some kind of guild event, but by then he believed it was to protect the guilt.

Laxus looked around, trying to find any clues, and finally knelt next to a femur that barely had any flesh attached to it. When he touched it, Natsu made some excited utterance to communicate that Gajeel wouldn't want him to, but a glare quieted him.

Then, Natsu saw him flexing his fingers and looking at his hand strangely.

There were deep cuts into the bone that had clearly been made by something extremely sharp, but the angles were different and they came in sets.

"We have to inform the Council, right?"

Laxus stood up and shook his head. "Natsu, burn this mess and everything around it. Don't leave anything behind."

"I can't burn Gajeel! Gajeel is my friend! What…stop it, Laxus, I can't…"

"The Magic Council is our enemy. Informing them about this would only mean Fairy Tail has another enemy interfering. If you can't do it, then leave and I will."

_**Please Review!**_

_**Thanks to ivory9elektra11fullbuster, Sangami, Starjade101, Deichanlover, Amanary, chocolate and caramel, archangel-Angelo, shadowsaver, Yukari Hiwada, and superduperizee for reviewing!**_

_AN: I realize this is fanfiction, so calm down and remember this is a Gruvia. That is all._


	3. Chapter 3

Suddenly, Gray was conscious.

Something had happened and there was some kind of external force that caused him to wake up, but he couldn't tell what it was. It was angry, and he felt like it was pissed off at him for some reason. It felt somehow hot, and familiar.

He found himself floating in astral form with his final opponent, who was thrashing around and fighting violently in its own astral form since neither was capable of actual physical movement within the Iced Shell. There were places that they seemed to be connected, like Gray was missing some part of himself and they'd somehow ended up stuck together this way.

Gray didn't even know how much time had passed, or why he was awake. There didn't seem to be any reason to it, and judging by the fact that it took Ur years to kill a weakened Deliora, he assumed that this dragon would continue its struggle against him possibly for decades.

The dragon, stuck in its elemental form, had inundated the space they were in with its ice magic.

There was too much carryover, because the dragon was in ice form and Gray was in ice form, so within the nucleus of the icy prison was a mass of ice magic that pulsated outward.

That external force tickled the edges of his senses like someone banging on the wall, and he wondered what was happening on the outside of the Iced Shell.

Then everything suddenly went black for him, as if he was aware but he could no longer sense himself, and it felt like more of him was missing. As if he was being pulled into a vortex, he felt like his consciousness was disappearing and came to the horrified realization that they were congealing into one creature and he wasn't the one that was making that happen. He was being absorbed somehow, and it was an absolutely terrifying idea.

The sensation that awoke Gray came from a certain dragon slayer slamming fire-engulfed fists into the wall of ice before him until his knuckles were cut to pieces and bruised. Natsu was infuriated with him for 'quitting,' and even when he found the gore that was severed from Gray's body, he still hated him for using Iced Shell.

How could he give up?

But Natsu thought that there was a lung on the ground, so if Gray didn't 'give up,' wouldn't that mean that he died for no reason?

Natsu didn't want to think about it, because ever since he learned about the Iced Shell, he wondered why it existed. Why couldn't a mage just believe in their friends and win?

When he heard a noise, he spun and saw Laxus standing behind him, showing the first sympathy that Natsu had ever seen from him.

"Gramps sent me to come get you. He thinks you're going to run off and get killed just like Gray," he stated as he looked up at the ice. "A dragon? A dragon made completely from ice? How terrifying."

Then Laxus reached out and put his hand on the ice. "Iced Shell, right? Gramps told me there was a good chance that this is how Gray would choose to go out."

A giant crack suddenly started to form in the ice near the top.

"That's impossible!" Natsu exclaimed, "Iced Shell can't be broken out of like that! What's happening?!"

Laxus asked, "If fire dragons eat fire, what do you think an ice dragon eats?"

"No way…you're saying…you're saying you think it's _eating _Gray?"

A chunk of the ice vanished, leaving part of the dragon's side exposed to open air.

Natsu gasped and pulled on his scarf. "Gray, you idiot!" he screamed.

A powerful bolt of lightning struck the exposed part of the dragon's body, then another, and the lightning mage said, "We should kill it while it's still being held still. I assume Gray chose this because he didn't want this thing coming after us."

There were a lot of questions in the younger man's mind about his friend. If Gray's life was turned into ice, what happened if only _part _of him was consumed? Did that mean that a part of his soul would be simply gone? It was scary on all counts, because even during the difficult life of a wizard, death was supposed to be the worst thing that could happen.

Having half of your being eaten after your whole self has turned into a stationary block of ice after being gruesomely mutilated was simply unfathomably scary.

At the same time, Natsu didn't want Gray to be completely eaten, and he definitely didn't want another enemy. If the dragon escaped, it meant that Gray essentially died for nothing, and his rival couldn't bear that idea.

So as the Iced Shell slowly vanished, they burned and electrocuted the dragon over the course of two hours with very little to show for it. The icy scales melted in places, but only to reveal more ice.

Exhausted, Natsu exclaimed, "Are they really this difficult to kill? Yet, people have done it. People have killed dragons."

"Probably not by a protracted barrage of elemental damage."

"By a what?"

Laxus answered, "If this amount of damage can't do it, then humans shouldn't be able to kill them at all. It can't even move. There's something we're missing. There's a trick and we don't know what it is."

Another chunk of the ice seemingly sank into the flesh of the dragon and a tail covered in huge spikes broke free and began whipping about.

For the distance the retreated to avoid it, they stared at the dragon that was only half-encased in ice. Cracks were forming all over the Iced Shell, so it seemed like it might break free at any minute. And for all their efforts, it didn't show any signs of even being weakened.

The sun's angle had changed, and when Natsu shifted, the light reflected perfectly on what had been the shadowed side during the morning. "There's something in the ice?"

"Eh?"

"Look, there. It looks like…a gem? A marble? It's almost the exact same color as the ice."

Laxus moved to beside him so he could see the tiny bauble. "I've seen one of those before…"

Natsu, having one of his more astute moments, said, "If the dragon lacrima in you gives you the power of a dragon, does that mean the magic that makes that thing impossible to kill comes from that little thing?"

"…And more importantly, if we rip it out, will that thing die?"

The dragon slayer suddenly felt a little queasy, because they were talking about killing, not capacitating and maybe lecturing. "Are you sure we have to kill it? Maybe we could just scare it and let it go."

"I think if Gray thought it should be free he would have just died like a dog instead of this. This is a fate worse than death – at least make sure his final wish is obeyed. Gray wanted this thing to die, so we're going to kill it," Laxus answered, "Our scents are here. If it eats the ice and gets free, it'll kill us too."

More cracks appeared in the ice and cold magic started to seep through them.

"And we have to do it now, because that thing is almost free."

Natsu didn't want to consider that sometimes it was completely necessary to kill, but hot on the heels of his dead peers, he choked down and said, "Nothing is worse for ice than fire, right?"

The lacrima was behind the intact part of the Iced Shell, but Natsu took a deep breath. "Try to hold the tail still!"

It was a perilous request at best, but when Laxus got his hands on the tail, he managed to avoid the spikes on it and pulled the slack out of it, giving it powerful jolts of electricity to keep it from jerking back and forth.

Natsu walked up to the wall of ice and growled, "Let me in, jackass!"

And when he slammed his fist into the ice, it slid through what was left of Gray's body to the icy scales of the dragon. Expending every last ounce of magic he had, he set off the mother of all firebombs around his hand and clenched his hand around the gem that he'd seen.

Instantly, the dragon's body turned from ice form to flesh and the tail went slack. The magic pressure disappeared, and the scent of death suddenly appeared.

The lacrima was so cold that Natsu let go of it after less than a second and pulled his arm out of the ice, leaving it suspended in the Iced Shell.

At that point, the only thing either of the wizards could do was rest.

In the darkness where Gray was, he couldn't remember anything or see anything. But he knew whatever had been merging with him was gone even though there were parts of it that seemed to stick with him. There was something else, something that was cold, and it sank into him. He wished that he could see what had intruded on his space in the astral prison, and suddenly, he could.

He wished he could hear about what was happening outside, and he heard a voice.

It was a voice that irritated him, but somehow, it was the most wonderful sound. Gray could vaguely remember Natsu asking to enter him, but couldn't remember who Natsu was or what happened.

The shining ball of light didn't have a voice, but for some reason, he was sure if he embraced it, he would remember where he was or how he got there. It was a living thing, and it was _ice _and for some reason, he felt like he could understand the ice.

Gray decided he would use its power, so he could remember why he was there and because he had the weird urge to go back to the voice outside. He was there for a reason, he had something, he wanted to do, and somehow, he knew that if he didn't use it, he would linger there in the dark place forever until he died.

He wanted to go back. He wanted to be himself.

Outside, Natsu was sitting next to the ice with his back against it. It was filled with cracks, had completely disappeared in places, and had a dead dragon hanging out of it. Some morbid part of his brain told him they had to cut up the dragon and wrench it out of the ice or it was going to rot in the Iced Shell.

He wasn't even sure why Gray had been attacked there, since there was nothing to find in the ruins. Laxus said the only thing that he could think of is that the dragons didn't know where Juvia was and the temple was the link between Juvia and them. Therefore, if humans tried to find out about what happened to her, the logical place to go was the temple, which could be under guard by someone who would get the truth out of whoever was dumb enough to show up.

It was the surprised "Tch!" from Laxus that caused him to look up to find a third party had joined them.

It was a woman with short white hair, pale skin, and mild, unexceptional white features, including pale, light gray eyes. Her entire body was hidden by a long white cape that was cinched closed with a Saint Wizard medallion.

"Fancy finding you in a place like this," Laxus hissed.

Natsu asked, "You know this person?"

"Atlantis the Water Witch."

Atlantis said, "I see now. Fairy Tail appeared. So the Vessel must be in some form of direct contact with you. A client, or, perhaps, a member?"

Natsu, whose normal instincts were to fight first and ask questions later, found that he'd matured enough over the past three hours to realize he and Laxus were basically out of magic and Atlantis had the medallion that said if she was an enemy, she was going to be a very difficult one. And truthfully, the 'water witch' aspect of it gave him a lot of pause as a fire mage.

When he looked to Laxus, the blond shook his head once, advising him not to do anything.

She looked over at Natsu. "Your guild has a water mage, doesn't it? I read something to that effect in Sorcerer's Weekly. To think the Vessel was in Fairy Tail…"

Her nearly lifeless-looking eyes glanced around the area, from the rubble to the two wizards. "On Tenrou Island, you didn't know how to do it, did you? But now you know."

"Know what?!" Natsu asked.

"How to kill a dragon. For that knowledge to be in the hands of the world's most dangerous dragon slayers isn't acceptable. You are both weak, and low on magic power. Eliminating you here is best. You'll become a nuisance if I do not," Atlantis mechanically uttered.

Natsu didn't want to believe she was being serious about assassinating them, but half a second later, he just narrowly dodged a blade of water that opened an enormous wound on his neck. It wasn't immediately fatal, but he had to jump out of the way and rely on Laxus to distract the water mage long enough to tie his scarf tightly around his throat. If his reflexes had been half a second late, she would have taken his head off just like that.

They were tired, they had almost no magic, and there wasn't any immediate way to solve either of these problems. When he lit up his fists to punch, she let him get close and his fist sailed through a body made from water and was immediately extinguished.

But then he couldn't pull his fist out of Atlantis and knives of water cut into his skin in dozens of places before a bolt of lightning struck her and went into him, throwing them apart.

Atlantis was like Gildarts; when she was fighting, she barely moved. It was like he meant nothing to her as an opponent, and even though his instinct was to ask her why her body was like Juvia's, he held his tongue.

Natsu tried to fondly recollect a lesson Macao gave him about how purple flare could defeat water magic. Clearly, Macao had never run into Atlantis the Water Witch, someone even Laxus took very seriously.

He fought like an underdog, dodging attacks and waiting for a moment when he could strike safely rather than just absorbing everything and overpowering the opponent.

And then she moved, and Natsu thought Laxus had dodged, but then his shirt suddenly started to turn red because his side had been split open. When the lightning wizard fell to his knees, Natsu – who was already woozy from losing too much of his own blood – threw a fire ball at her which collided with a ball of water.

That angry look she gave him made his blood run cold, and the concussive blast from a massive water bomb sent him flying into Laxus and then into what was left of the Iced Shell. Heads smacked against the hard surface hard enough to cause ringing in the ears, and they soon found a wall of hundreds of daggers of water flying at them from all angles.

Laxus didn't even have enough magic to teleport out of the way, and the daggers were big, sharp, and high enough in numbers that there was no way he could see this fight ending in anything other than the gruesome mutilation of their corpses.

In an instant, all those daggers turned to ice and fell to the ground and the Iced Shell exploded behind them, causing Natsu to fall onto his back and glance upon a silhouette of the unmistakable Gray Fullbuster made completely from ice.

Then that ice turned to flesh that really didn't resemble the Gray that Natsu knew as much as one would expect. The parts of his body that were physically removed before he entered the Iced Shell – a big chunk of his chest and most of one of his hands – looked as if they'd simply been rebuilt using dragon flesh and were covered with light-colored translucent scales. The hand that was injured didn't even look human anymore, replaced but what more closely resembled a dragon's talon.

The scales were in various other places in uneven patches, and his dark eyes looked completely reptilian and the colored part seemed to be made from ice.

Gray basically looked like a monster. Scarred, scaly, and inhuman in various places, he came out of the ice staring at their opponent and his gaze never wavered.

All around him, it was so insufferably cold.

A water blade came toward him, and Gray put his hand out and turned it to ice, then used ice make magic to create a tall, thick wall to separate his injured nakama from their enemy.

Atlantis stared at him, seeming somehow bored by all of this, as if murder was an inconvenient and she had better things to do. Then her eyes trailed down further. "Does it bother you that you're naked in front of a lady?"

Gray was still patching things together in his own mind, but he'd managed to figure out that for whatever reason, he wasn't at all shy about letting his dick wag around in the open air. It felt oddly familiar to him. "For some reason, not at all."

"My body is made from water. You can never hurt me, so I don't know why you think you can look upon me with such viciousness."

_Made from water?_

She was like Juvia, which caused him to remember Juvia, and the fact that he'd come there to save her. Running into someone like her who knew what was going on was easily one of the best things that could happen, and Gray had no problem extracting the information by absolutely any means necessary. In this horrible tale, he was way past the point where he could be a gentleman about anything.

Much like fire was uniquely disadvantaged against water, water was similarly disadvantaged by ice magic..

There was something in him that hadn't been there before – a side effect of merging with something that wasn't his – and he wanted to just rip into the enemy like some kind of animal. Rake his claws across her flawless skin and make her abandon her calm demeanor for screaming while he inflicted enormous amounts of pain on her.

"Such bloodlust...it makes me shiver," his opponent said.

Gray answered, "Your body is made from water. That means you must know about Juvia."

"Is that the name the Vessel is using? That makes it so much easier to find her."

And this, this made Gray lose whatever control he had left.

Ice make magic took an enormous amount of resolve and thinking power to execute, so he could never really lose his mind, but now, ice magic was flowing through his entire body. Maybe it wasn't even just ice in its pure form, but dominance over cold that obeyed when he lunged forward and his normal hand became coated in a jagged chunk of ice.

Atlantis turned to water to dodge the attack and he swept his hand through the water, turning what was supposed to be her arm into harmless ice.

The wizard mage reassembled her body, and her entire arm was missing because it was no longer water.

The water mage's unaffected attitude disappeared when she saw blood gush from where her left arm abruptly ended at her shoulder, and on the other side of his wall, Laxus and Natsu heard her scream in horror.

Atlantis had never met a powerful ice wizard because it was actually a somewhat rare magic. Never once had she considered that dominion over ice also implied some dual-nature command over water. But Gray already knew someone like Atlantis, so of course he'd figured that much out.

She couldn't risk turning into water, and there was blood everywhere. Natsu's, Laxus's, and hers and not far from them, the dried blood and rotting gore leftover from Gray's battle.

He came at her with a fist covered in ice at a pace that was too fast to dodge, and absolutely certain that turning to water would result in her brain turning to ice and falling on the ground, she took it to the left cheek, feeling the sharp edges cut so deep into her face that for the rest of her life, she'd be scarred.

"…monster!" she hissed.

Gray hit her again and then pinned her to the ground. "Maybe I am, but whose fault is that?"

He pressed his clawed hand to her throat. "Suddenly, I have this side that just wants to tear you open just to see what you look like on the inside. So, you're going to talk to me. I've earned that much."

"I won't betray my master. Even if you kill me, you're never going to learn anything."

At that point, Natsu managed to melt through the ice wall and found his rival had pinned their would-be killer to the ground. Atlantis was shaking in utter terror as she stared up at him, forcing out declarations of loyalty between teeth that chattered from fear and chill.

Natsu wanted to tell Gray to stop, but he knew if Gray stopped – even for his own good because he looked like he was absolutely out of his own mind – that he and Laxus couldn't fight Atlantis in the state they were in. Gray could contend with her because he wasn't injured, out of magic, or otherwise grossly disadvantaged where she was concerned.

"When is this horrible nightmare going to end?" he whispered to himself.

Laxus didn't say anything, because he was unconscious in a pool of blood, so Natsu moved over to him and started to burn the worst wounds closed. The smell of blood, burning flesh, death…everything about where they were at that moment seemed like hell, and he'd believed until Gray reappeared that they were going to die a gory death at the hands of the so-called Saint Wizard.

He heard more screaming and saw Gray working his monster talon into where her arm now ended, and then a flurry of words that promised even if Gray killed her, Acnologia couldn't be stopped. He'd find them.

Natsu decided he'd close his eyes for a while, and let whatever Gray was doing just happen. Maybe he could recover his strength if he just closed his eyes and thought about the times when Fairy Tail was a place of drinking and partying and friendly scrapping and not a place where things like this happened.

When he opened them again, it was nighttime, and he was somewhere else, sleeping on a bed after having passed out from his neck injury.

His wounds were dressed, he was in clean clothes, and he could smell food and fire. When he went to the bathroom near the room where he had been sleeping, he pulled the bandage on his neck back and learned that a quarter of an inch and he would have bleed to death earlier that day. For someone that had been in as many battles as he had, he'd had so few injuries like this.

The walls were giant logs, and Natsu remembered a cluster of log cabins by a lake not far from the temple.

Downstairs, Gray was sitting at a table with Laxus eating like he'd never eaten in his entire life.

His appearance seemed normal, but Natsu couldn't look at him and not see what he'd seen before. The only thing about him that seemed different in this calm state was scales on the back of his hand and on his chest. But Natsu almost couldn't stand to look at him without seeing the clawed, inhuman monster he'd seen earlier.

Natsu sat down and stared at his rival. "How did you come out of the Iced Shell?"

"Because you dropped an ice dragon lacrima into my ice. Laxus can turn from lightning to flesh and back again with a lacrima even though human bodies shouldn't be capable of that. So I guess it makes sense that an ice dragon lacrima would allow the same thing to happen." The ice wizard seemed sad when he added, "My body isn't really the same though. I don't know if I'm going to live very long like this."

"Why wouldn't you?"

Gray said, "I don't know exactly, but I think my body was patched up by the lacrima and is held together by its magic. It seems to take a lot of magic. It feels poisonous. Atlantis told us that most of the people who have a lacrima put into their bodies end up dead. She was a failed second gen that almost died when her body rejected the lacrima that's in Juvia now. That's why her magic was like Juvia's."

"She also said that the thing Gramps was talking about was true. Juvia has a real monster that could wipe our guild off the earth inside of her body right now," Laxus added, "What we don't know – and what they don't understand either – is the reason it's staying in Magnolia. There must be something there that Hydra wants that's keeping it close to Fairy Tail instead of making contact with its allies."

Natsu narrowed his eyes. "Hydra…I've heard that name before. It was something Igneel said. Something about water? I guess that's kind of not helpful at this point."

Gray tuned out the sound of the others. Before Atlantis was executed – an option that was ultimately executed by Gray in the calmest of states with the agreement of Laxus – she told them enough for them to fully realize how dire their situation was. If they hadn't killed her, she would have told the likes of those allied with Acnologia where to find what that dragon was apparently desperate to find.

When Gray heard about Gajeel, he felt a stab of guilt, because he'd had the choice to kill Juvia and eliminate the enemy before it ever took possession of her. He knew somehow, even then, that it might be the right thing to do, but he couldn't. So far, Gajeel had been killed, meaning he made a decision that resulted in Gajeel's death. That same decision resulted in what nearly killed himself by way of Iced Shell as well as Natsu and Laxus at the hands of Atlantis.

And if that had all happened, Fairy Tail would have been left to take on the enemy without Laxus, Juvia, Gajeel, Natsu, or himself. It was not a winning proposition, and everything happened because he wouldn't kill Juvia.

Gray wondered when Juvia became so important to him. Wasn't she a nuisance, a stalker, a person that just bothered him and followed him around nursing an unhealthy fascination? That wasn't true anymore. He'd basically died for her and killed for her, and allowed other people to be killed because he refused to raise a deadly hand against her.

No matter what happened to either of them from that point on, their fates were so tightly tangled that she could never just be some ancillary character that existed. In her absolute darkest hour, she asked him for death and he promised he'd save her.

Gray had no intention of going back on that oath, no matter how much more he had to sacrifice.

_**Special thanks to Wayuuum, .yan, trapeze swingers, YuYoLs, counterfactuals, ivory9elektra11fullbuster, Yukari Hiwada, Starjade101, LaNoireChatte, and shadowsaver for reviewing! **_


	4. Chapter 4

As Gray made his way back to his apartment late on the night they arrived back in Magnolia, he had to tune out the sound of a carnival that was operating in the park behind his apartment. People were everywhere; laughing, skipping, and running around with sugary treats and smiles through air that carried the happiest music.

It was a cruel and haunting juxtaposition, and what might have seemed like fun to him seemed oddly mysterious and terrifying. Sharp hearing picked up on the creak of wood as the rides moved, and children zoomed past him screaming in excitement about clowns and magic and cotton candy.

The clowns on stilts bothered him and he knew that shouldn't have been the case. Yet as they towered above everyone, they seemed to be above humanity, and their faces weren't human either. They looked like monsters, like enemies, and even looking away from them seemed somehow dangerous.

Then he realized he was scared of what was probably a middle-aged man wearing makeup and acting silly.

Yet something drew him toward the carnival. Maybe it was the sound; he wanted to make it stop. Gray knew that maybe it wasn't the sanest thing, but he felt like the pipe organs were somehow taunting him to come closer. The bright, colorful lights formed halos that eclipsed his vision and so many sounds and smells…

It was disorienting, and he felt like he was going to go crazy. There was something there in him that wasn't there before and it was frightening. He didn't feel like it was a second personality; it was more like a second nature. While Gray was normally calm and cool in all circumstances and kept the most level-head even in battle, his mind drifted erratically from one subject to another without focus or purpose.

Gray suddenly managed to break out of his trace and ran up the stairs to his apartment, slamming the door behind him before turning the lock and sliding down to the floor.

Things inside were not necessarily better, because the bright colored lights from the park bathed his apartment in flashing lights. Purple, orange, red, blue, green…and the music was still clearly audible.

He went in the bathroom where there weren't any windows, and when he reached for the knob, he saw his hand was turning back into a dragon's claw.

What he didn't know then was that his daze was induced by the fact that his lacrima – still largely in control of his temperament – was reacting to the presence of Juvia's monster, which had also sensed him.

Hydra wandered around near the carnival grounds in Juvia's body.

The ice dragon that was killed was a dear ally, and she could detect that it was somehow in Magnolia as soon as he got off the train. She even managed to figure out Gelid the Cold was somewhere in the vicinity of the park, but once she arrived there, thousands of human scents obscured her sense of smell.

Blending in seamlessly in Juvia's body, Hydra wandered the carnival grounds in search of the essence of her ally. She didn't understand what it meant that there was clearly no huge ice dragon wreaking havoc upon the humans, although even there amongst them, she couldn't help but imagine how wonderful the destruction would be if she came out to play.

Didn't a child that came upon an anthill have the urge to kick it? To marvel in his or her own domination over the insects as they ran about in confusion unable to even grasp the monster that destroyed the home they spent generations building?

And for once, the real owner of the body she was in was completely silent.

When Juvia watched her kill Gajeel, she screamed hysterically and cried endlessly until she went to sleep. Then the next day, she started crying as soon as she awoke and cried until Makarov told the guild that Gray had also died, although no details were given.

Since that moment, Juvia had never slept, never moved, and never said even a word. She simply floated there in a daze like she was dead.

Hydra's narrow understanding of Juvia's existence led her to the conclusion that Gajeel and Gray were essentially her only relevant connections to anyone. Those at the guild were friendly to her, but Juvia was very peculiar for a human and hadn't made friends. Other than the occasional cordial conversation with Lucy Heartfilia, Juvia's life was devoid of relevant links to other humans without Gajeel and Gray.

The smell of poison made her turn into a huge tent where all kinds of dangerous animals were kept in cages. Lions, tigers, small monsters from various corners of the world, and in one corner a small, poisonous viper.

A fat man in a purple suit pointed at the cage with a rod and the viper struck at it, hitting the glass. "Missy, this here is a rare viper from the depths of Razor Canyon. They say the venom of the Razor Viper is a powerful aphrodisiac and in ancient times, people would use it as such," he said, pausing to give her a suggestive eyebrow waggle that she viewed as more of an invitation to eat him than anything else, "But taking even a drop too much can be deadly and cause many side effects. The lines between pleasure, passion, pain, sickness, and death, all right here in this snake!"

_Death…_

That word snapped Juvia out of her daze.

The dragon was right; Juvia's only precious things in life were her friend Gajeel and the man she loved. She believed they had both died because of her, and the people who treated her kindly and with mercy would only suffer more if she continued to exist. Juvia decided that if she died, she could meet Gajeel and Gray in the afterlife and beg for their forgiveness.

Juvia suddenly wanted to die more than she'd wanted anything in her life and the dragon, which was unguarded since the real owner of her body stopped fighting, wasn't prepared for the seemingly random moment when Juvia surged to life with more power than she'd ever commanded in her life.

And she won, wresting control from Hydra.

The shockwave of magic that came when Hydra retaliated caused the glass on the cages all around to shatter, brought down tents, and utterly and completely terrified everyone. Then a hard rain started and Juvia emerged from under the tent when it was tugged off of her by the brave few that wanted to help. In her hands was that snake, whose teeth were lodged into the flesh of her right breast through her shirt.

It felt like fire that spread through her body, and after it released her, she killed it with a dagger of water so it wouldn't hurt anyone else and looked around.

Gray's home was so close, and she believed she'd rather die on his bed that smelled like him than in the rain in the park. But her legs weren't cooperating, and when they gave out, the arms that caught her were none other than that of the man who had now been beckoned to her side by the rain twice.

The ice mage had seen the snake attached to her body, and he didn't know the scent of poison yet, but he was sure that was what it was.

In unbearable pain, Juvia couldn't really believe he was there. He was supposed to be dead, wasn't he? The master wouldn't have told them he wasn't coming home if that wasn't true.

"Gray-sama, is this Heaven?"

The way she said his name told him instantly that the person in control was Juvia and not the monster. So he knew this snake bite was probably intentional. Juvia had wanted to die to protect everyone else since the beginning, and he said no, that he wasn't going to let that happen.

He laid her on her back and tore her shirt open. "Sorry, Juvia. This is still Hell, and you're going to stay here with me for a while longer."

Gray heard once that sucking venom out of a snake bite might save someone, so he put his mouth down on the wound that was just to the side of her nipple and tried that. It was bitter, and it made his mouth feel hot at first, and then kind of numb.

This was the time when the man she'd loved told her in the most authoritative voice that he wanted her to stay with him, and even though she'd waited for Gray to say this since the day they met, she just felt so sad she couldn't even bear the words.

Gray picked her up and carried her in the direction of his apartment, although he found it wasn't so easy due to the effects of the poison that had entered him through his mouth despite his best attempts to spit it out. Juvia was unconscious by then, but he made it up the stairs and into the apartment, and he could barely pick up his feet by the time he dropped Juvia on his bed and passed out there himself.

While unconscious, Juvia had a dream that her monster intruded on, since her physically weakened state interfered with magic and prevented Hydra from regaining control. In it, the monster was so enraged and yes, _hurt_. Because the essence of her 'greatest friend, Gelid the Ice Dragon,' well, it was coming from Gray, which meant he had been killed, probably by Gray.

Hydra killed Gajeel, her best friend, and Gray had caused or somehow been involved in the death of the monster's friend. The dragon that only spared Juvia words to mock her humanity and her love had lost her own Gajeel to the human she loved so much. It seemed quite fitting to Juvia.

The monster promised that when she regained control, the first thing she would do was tear Gray limb from limb.

Then she awoke and found Gray watching her with eyes that had black circles around them and lips that were bluish. There was sweat on his brow and she realized she was probably the same or worse.

Gray rolled over so their faces were so close and whispered, "Why? I said I would save you. Don't you have any faith in those words?"

Juvia answered, "Juvia doesn't want you to die for her sake."

"It's my life. I can die for whatever I want. That's my right as human."

Her blue eyes watered and she cried, "Doesn't Juvia also have that right?"

There was such determination in his face then. "Listen to me, Juvia. You're not allowed to die."

"But!"

"But I don't care. You're not allowed to die. You better not try this again, or even think about it. If you get hurt or something, no matter how bad it is, I don't care. If you die, I'll be mad at you and I'll never forgive you. Death is not something that can happen to you. Got that?"

She just gave him a sad look and decided she finally found something about him that she didn't like: he was stubborn beyond reason and held onto something that logically, he shouldn't have. It was something that might kill him, her, and many other people, but he just couldn't accept the fact that it would be better for everyone for him to let her go.

A stubborn fool like him? Is that who she'd been in so infatuated with all along? Is that the person she'd called her '-sama?' He wasn't a '-sama;' he was an idiot. As they lay there facing each other, suddenly she wanted him to hate her, for her to be worthless to him, because then he'd be able to do the thing he couldn't.

"Gray, you're stupid, stubborn, and you're doing reckless things that don't make any sense," she said, using his name without the honorific for the first time.

And yet, she'd rather be there in hell with him than in heaven.

"Juvia is sorry. I'm sorry. All these things happened, because Juvia came here. Juvia followed you to Fairy Tail. Juvia put all of this on you. Juvia went to you with this. Juvia…Juvia…Juvia…Gray never asked for this."

Gray gave her a scowl and seemed angry when he said, "I didn't promise to save you because you were a burden. I made that promise because I don't want you to die. I want you to stay here and be alive with me."

At this, Juvia just burst into tears and started crying like she'd never cried in her life and felt warm arms wrap around her and pull her close. "You're being a cruel to Juvia! Saying you can die for whatever you want but she can't! It's not fair! You're…You're a jerk!"

Gray was so surprised by her anger and that excited utterance, but as soon as it was out, she just crumbled.

"I'm so scared," she sobbed, defaulting into first-person like someone who had some kind of grasp on themselves – like it was something she knew better than she knew herself. Being held in Gray's arm was such a huge dream of hers, and even though she was thankful he was comforting her and being strong for her when she couldn't be, she hated it. She hated that Gajeel was gone and she hated that she felt so powerless and she hated that it was her body that was used for these horrible things.

Juvia cried until she was numb, and her body just felt strange and kind of weak. The acute effects of the poison had passed by then, so she just rested there against him. He was warm, so warm, and part of that was due to the poison, but she'd always assumed his skin would be cool or cold. Then again, she'd thought he was a '-sama,' and she'd believed he was some perfect hero.

Gray brushed his hand across her cheek and wiped the tears away. "You're too pretty to cry, you know. It's depressing. I don't like seeing it."

"Pretty?"

The ice mage nodded. "The first time I saw you, I thought it was just my luck that I'd have to hit the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I've always been really frustrated with you though because you just didn't see me. You loved this 'Gray-sama' character. You annoyed me, but apparently you just realized what an idiot I am, and that makes me happy even though everything is horrible. Somehow, you realizing I'm an asshole is like a bright ray of sunshine to me right now."

Gray leaned his forehead against hers and she started crying again.

"I'm frightened and I can't see the future anymore. All I can see is Gajeel and all these bad things. It feels like everything is so bad that it can never be good again," she whimpered.

To hear her use first person, and express emotion like that so unlike her that he was confused, but then he realized that maybe her use of first-person was due to something that he didn't completely understand. Maybe her existence had become simple enough that she simply knew she was Juvia and that she was scared.

He didn't know how to encourage her, because he was lost in dysphoria too.

So Gray tried to think of something happy. Anything.

"When all this is over, we should go away together for a few days."

Juvia seemed lost and incapable of imagining this wondrous future at the moment, so he continued with, "We'll go someplace where it's sunny and warm and there's lots of good food. There will be no monsters, crying, or being scared half to death – just rest and fun."

"With our friends?"

"Hell no! There's vacationing with friends, and there's a vacation from friends."

Even though the woman tried to imagine them out some romantic getaway, the reality of their situation was too heavy for any dream to exist, no matter how happy or minor. The idea that they'd just be able to have a peaceful, happy day seemed impossible.

She realized that she was so weak at that point and he was giving her his strength to carry her through this terrible situation they'd been swept up in. "You're strong. Juvia is weak."

"Someday, I'll need you to be strong for me. You'll be around for me then, right?"

Juvia nodded.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

_**Thanks to counterfactuals, Catwho, and Yukari Hiwada for reviewing!**_


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